Paterson wonders if unions have pushed him to layoffs

In the Q&A that followed this morning’s press conference about the expansion of the state’s DNA database, Gov. David Paterson was hit with several questions about a plan to achieve state worker layoffs that he said was in its “elementary stages.”

Noting that state workers unions have so far resisted every alternative for concessions, Paterson admitted to having “a sinister feeling about the heads of some of these unions: When people are laid off, they can’t vote in union elections anymore. So, your know, sometimes I wonder if I haven’t been pushed into this.”

After his judicial setback last week in the suit brought by those same union leaders over the furlough plan, Paterson suggested that he was not at this point moving to overturn last summer’s memorandum of understanding his representative signed with CSEA and PEF, securing a no-layoffs pledge in exchange for the unions’ support for a Tier V pension plan. But Paterson didn’t take that option off the table.

“I don’t think the memorandum of understanding is one that could not be changed because of events not within the contemplation of the parties,” Paterson saud. “Everybody was saying that the economy would change by the third quarter of 2009. That didn’t happen. So that’s why we were placed in the position that we are in now. Obviously if the situation got worse, we would look at perhaps speeding up the plan, and challenging the memorandum of understanding. But the reality is right now it takes a long period of time to schedule the layoffs, so I want (a layoff plan) ready to go on Jan. 1 so that the next governor has this option should the next governor choose to use it.”

Paterson said he would call “all four candidates for governor” — not sure if that includes Myers Mermel or not — “for clarification, but they seem to be indicating that we’re all going to have to share sacrifice, and that without a compromise that hopefully we might still be able to achieve, that this is only way were going to be able to get $250 million of workforce reductions from the state public employees.”

Paterson insisted he was not using the development of a layoff plan as a new bargaining chip in his ongoing poker game with public employee unions.

“I’m not trying to send a message to the unions, nor am I trying to send a message to the workers,” Paterson said. “I would like everyone in the public to get the message that our economy is in serious peril — that the state ran out of money in December for the first time in our history, ran out of money again in March and has run out of money again today. On all three occasions I had to hold back money to school districts, to local governments, to not-for-profits that do a lot of the state’s work, to wait for the resources to come back in.

“We are living months to month, we are living on the margin of outr means, and we insist that all citizens be part of the sacrifice so that we don’t risk going into default as 10 or 15 states are headed right now. … This is not the way I would have liked to have done it, but my role right now, my constitutional oath, is to keep the state solvent, and this is the means of coming up with $250 million that we need, otherwise the Legislature would have to find $250 million — as you may have noticed, they seem to be having trouble finding the reductions that we need to balance the budget as it stands right now.”

Update: CSEA President Danny Donohue issued a statement that it was “unfortunate” that Paterson “continues to engage in threats and counterproductive rhetoric instead of focusing on securing a budget that will work for all the people of New York. It’s also interesting that the Governor is making his threats against dedicated state employees at the same time that Kelly Services is advertising for temporary jobs to work in state agencies despite a state hiring freeze and other drastic measures being put forth.”